Dual map system for navigation and wireless communication

Abstract

A system produces of an empirical map of wireless communication coverage through a process of combining information from individual clients to produce a map which is then shared by all of the clients. The wireless coverage map aids in maintaining a reliable communications link. The empirical map is generated by combining information from a group of mobile wireless users. The group may consist of a fleet of trucks, taxicabs, government service vehicles, or the customers of a wireless service provider. The mobile vehicles must be equipped with a GPS device or be located by other means such as triangulation. While vehicles are moving, the quality of wireless communication, e.g., signal strength or communication continuity, is recorded for each vehicle as a function of positions. The data from all of the vehicles is combined to produce the empirical map. The empirical map may be maintained at a central site and subsets of the map replicated for individual vehicles. The map may then be used to direct mobile users to sites of superior communications reliability, warn mobile users when they are out of the service area or are about to leave the service area, or to regulate data communications automatically to stop and restart communications as a mobile vehicle passes through a gap in coverage.

1. A wireless mobile communications method, comprising the steps of:
 identifying a starting point and one or more destination locations in a geographic area;  
 determining at least one route in said geographic area from said stating point to said one or more destination locations along which a wireless mobile communications device can be transported, and where a signal quality along said at least one route meets a threshold value, said determining step utilizing a map which comprises empirically collected information pertaining to wireless communications in at least a portion of said geographic area; and  
 selecting a route with a best signal quality from amongst a plurality of routes determined in said determining step.  
 
   
   
     2. The wireless mobile communications method of  claim 1  wherein said determining step determines a plurality of routes in said geographic area, and further comprising the step of notifying a user or a predicted signal quality for at least one of said plurality of routes.